Activists failed to repeal Ohio’s GOP education overhaul — but the fight isn’t over

A Republican-backed higher education overhaul in Ohio, which banned diversity, equity and inclusion programming, among other measures, took effect late last month. It forced the state’s public universities to adapt new practices in compliance with the law, ahead of the 2025-2026 academic year.

But for Mark Vopat, Cryshanna Jackson Leftwich and Mandy Fehlbaum, three faculty union leaders at Youngstown State University who spearheaded the ballot referendum effort aiming to repeal the new law, that means doing absolutely nothing at all.

“I’m not changing anything,” Vopat, a YSU professor of philosophy, told Salon. “I don’t accept the premise that our classrooms have been indoctrinating or biased in a way that is inappropriate in any way.” So he sees no reason to make any changes, he said.

“I read through the bill, and honestly, it doesn’t say that as faculty, we’re required to do anything,” added Jackson Leftwich, a YSU professor of political science. It’s up to campus administrators at Youngstown State, she said. “It’s their responsibility.”

The professors’ grassroots attempt to get Senate Bill 1 on the November ballot came to a disappointing end one day before the law’s June 27 enactment date, with the announcement that they had not collected enough signatures. In the seven weeks from their petition’s certification in May to the June 25 deadline, organizers and volunteers gathered 195,157 signatures across all 88 Ohio counties. That, however, fell short of the roughly 250,000 signatures from 44 counties required by the secretary of state’s office to pause the law and put it to a vote.

Fehlbaum, Vopat and Jackson Leftwich contend that if they’d had a little more time — Vopat estimated another 10 to 14 days — and greater support from other, larger organizations, they would be telling a different story.

Fehlbaum, who teaches sociology at YSU, said the petition drive was delayed by two weeks while “waiting for another group to come forward that had infrastructure and funding,” which ultimately did not happen. Other groups, she suggested, did not take the ballot referendum push seriously, sought to prioritize challenging the legislation in the courts instead, or concluded that a ballot initiative would be too difficult and too expensive.

In addition to ending DEI programs at the state’s public colleges and universities, SB 1 limits faculty unions, places new requirements on faculty and tenure reviews, and regulates classroom discussion around “controversial beliefs,” including climate policy, marriage, immigration and electoral politics.

A number of Ohio institutions began to comply with the law in the spring, shuttering DEI offices, eliminating a number of majors in the humanities and social sciences, and postponing racial affinity events.

The YSU professors said they want to see how students will react to the rollback in resources when they return to campus in the fall. They also voiced concerns for the future of higher education in the state, warning that this law is likely to drive students away from Ohio’s schools, fuel grade inflation — as faculty attempt to assuage accusations of bias — and create a pathway for the Republican-dominated state legislature to attack K-12 education next.

“When you allow the state legislature to dictate how your colleges and universities run, you take away a lot of integrity, you take away best practices, you take away what universities stand for,” Jackson Leftwich said.

While they’re still regrouping from their defeat, Vopat and Felhlbaum said they have taken one important lesson away from the effort: They’re not alone.

“There are worse things than failing, and that’s being alone. No one is alone here,” Vopat said, retooling a “Ted Lasso” quote. “One thing that I really got out of this is that there are a whole bunch of people in this state who are very unhappy with the way things are going. There are literally hundreds of thousands of people out there who are saying we’re going in the wrong direction.”

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Their fight isn’t over, the activist professors say. The trio told Salon that they are pursuing new strategies, along with their network of more than 1,700 volunteers, about other legislative avenues they can pursue stave off the effects of the bill. They’re not yet ready to discuss details about next steps and further options, but said that with the infrastructure they’ve built and the support they’ve garnered, the petition’s failure is a setback but not a final defeat.

“If anything, it just shows me how wrong-headed some individuals are about how much it takes,” Fehlbaum said, pointing to the mass of volunteers who used their own resources to print the pre-certification petitions, and then spent days collecting signatures and many hours scanning completed petitions, all on their own personal time. “It doesn’t take hiring paid petitioners. It doesn’t take hiring paid staff. We can do this on our own. That’s what real democracy looks like.”